Pumpkin "Cheese" Sauce

A healthy and vegan version of macaroni and cheese inspired by fall. This creamy sauce pairs perfectly poured over your favorite pasta noodle or I also love serving it poured over broccoli. It's velvety smooth and tastes rich but will not weigh you down. Finding healthy and vegan alternatives to mac and cheese has been some what of a passion project of mine, and pumpkins earthy flavor makes the perfect base for one. I highly highly suggest roasting and pureeing your own pumpkin as canned pumpkin just isn't the same! But do make sure to use a sugar or a squash pumpkin. Roasting a pumpkin is really easy and you can freeze the extra puree to have on hand at any time. After you roast the pumpkin the recipe comes together really quickly and easily, all you have to do is blend up a few ingredients.

If you do try this out, let me know and if you take a photo tag me on instagram @bykindlykate #bykindlykate.

Serves: 2

Total Cook Time: 55 minutes (including roasting of the pumpkin), 10 minutes if the pumpkin is already pureed!

FOR THIS RECIPE YOU'LL NEED

1 sugar pumpkin (if you're making your own purée)

for the sauce:

1 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

1 tsp garlic powder

2 tbsp white miso paste

2 tsbp hemp seeds

juice of 1/2 lemon

6 tbsp almond milk

salt & pepper to taste (I love using lots of black pepper with this recipe)

PREPARATION

To roast the pumpkin simply remove the stem, cut it in half and roast, cut side facing down, in a 400 degree fahrenheit oven for 45 minutes or until tender and cooked through. Remove the skin, it should come off easily after it's cooked, and put the cooked pumpkin in a blender or food processor and blend until you have a smooth puree. Reserve 1 cup of pumpkin puree for this recipe (or modify to serve more people) and freeze the extra purée for future use.

Add pumpkin puree and the remaining ingredients to a blender and blend on high until combined.